Friday, March 11, 2011

A children's primer from 1827, for all you alphabet fans out there.

Here's an interesting book. It's the 7th edition of a children's primer called בית הספר (Vienna 1827) by Yehuda Leib Ben Ze'ev. The purpose of this book was to teach reading and writing, both Hebrew and Judeo-German. So, it begins with the Aleph Bet. I thought a couple of pages are interesting.

Here is the chart of Rashi script, which he calls ראבינישע שריפֿט (rabbinische schrift), or Rabbinic script.

Next is what we today call Wayberteutsch, or Yiddish script, which he calls יידיש~דייטשע דרוק~שריפֿט (yiddisch-deutsche druck-schrift), or Judeo-German printing script. Beneath it is a sample of the semicursive, or handwriting script which was common in the time (and very similar to the one which is common today). He calls it יידישע שרייבשריפֿט (yiddische schreibschrift), or Yiddish handwriting.

And if anyone wants to bother translating this, it's apparently some kind of prayer for nice children mentioning the Doppelkaiser Kaiser Franz, who I'm sure was just a prince among men. Interesting, because for some reason it was printed in the same handwriting font:

In case anyone was wondering, the book includes rules for writing Judeo-German, which was just German but in the Hebrew alphabet - still common in those times. It also includes simplified history essays and moral exhortations for children, in easy Hebrew, with the harder words translated into Judeo-German in footnotes. The second part, which is literary, includes poems and beautiful excerpts from the Talmud called דברי חכמים פתגמי התלמודיים. Before anyone else points this out, this section last for three pages. Immediately following is a section called חכמי יון which is thirty pages long.

You can't make this stuff up:

Finally, it closes with some misogynistic limericks along these lines:

Note: Ben Ze'ev died in 1811. This is the 7th edition, and I have no idea if his original was exactly like this.

Here is the author, who also wrote a timely volume called מליצה לפורים:

See this post for some traditional ideas about when Ben Ze'ev wrote and where he died.

Then that makes this post all the more special. Since it's basically a word which doesn't exist in the Latin alphabet you can transliterate it any way you want, but if you google waybertaytsch then you'll get . . . another of my posts.

Also, in case anyone's wondering, that yarmulke is a joke. I know that Purim is a week away, but between the page on Epikoros the חכם גדול ומפאר and Ben Ze'ev's own מליצה לפורים I couldn't resist a little fun. Also see here.

Then that makes this post all the more special. Since it's basically a word which doesn't exist in the Latin alphabet you can transliterate it any way you want, but if you google waybertaytsch then you'll get . . . another of my posts.

Also, in case anyone's wondering, that yarmulke is a joke. I know that Purim is a week away, but between the page on Epikoros the חכם גדול ומפאר and Ben Ze'ev's own מליצה לפורים I couldn't resist a little fun. Also see here.